[Poem-a-Week] Christmas presence by Doug Jacquier
Who knows how long Christmas can hold onto the future through collective presence? Whatever the generations bring, there will be totems of the past fixed firmly insistent in each of our minds, arrayed with faces carved in the hard woods that only family trees produce and set, sometimes poles apart, in the family grove. Children growing in new numbers each year, all named and loved and parented in common for a day with tear-filled eyes, chocolate-coated faces and grinny cheeks, each hoisted to embrace and admiration, all feats applauded and all false pride mocked. Food, prepared as sanctioned by time, in unspoken, ordained ritual by the women, the bearers of all sustaining life. Men, surrounded by seemingly unobservant boys, using beer to shorten stretching distances, quietly competing every hurdle until a child clings to a leg and wins. Lives past, sitting patiently in reserved and sacred chairs, coming back to life in anecdotes of bastardry and joy. Babes at breast, absorbing every nuance through the pores of their clan skin and the memories encoded in their mother’s milk. And, amidst all, the matriarch unfolds a pattern with skills both ancient and subtle, draws to her strands unknitted, in case they ever unravel and pull the fabric apart. These are my totems, taking firmer shape with each year, and living beyond any sharing of now. And they ensure that in all our futures we will have at least one day not alone.
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